It All Started With A Letter
by EdinaC
Summary: With a regular trip to the postoffice Phineas unwittingly manages to pull the thread that unravels his life and his shadowy father - whom he knows nothing about, save for his inherited last name - in the way that only Phineas can.
1. Prologue

**A/N – This is the update. I didn't want to confuse you.**

**Prologue:**

The cutting, pulsating roar of a helicopter broke the desert silence. The rhythmic _whop, whop, whop, whop, whop, whop_ of the blades pounded on his ear drums as he sat in the back of the helicopter. The occasional times he looked out he could see, or thought he could see, little tufts of fur and scales disappearing under rocks and below the small amount of plants that scattered the area as the helicopter approached.

The desert was hot. The desert was dry. By definition it _was_ definitely a desert. No water for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. Off in the distance could be seen the magnificent desert horizon with its blue glow. Around the edges of the desert were high, towering mountain ranges; chipped pinnacles of stone capped with a soft white frosting of new snow.

Behind them were the lights of a port town, an adjoining aircraft carrier moored several miles off shore; they could see its welcoming, blinking lights on the hanger deck, fighter jets landing every now and again, supported by nothing but the churning, swirling, cold, dark waters of the Indian Ocean beneath. The lights were a twinkling, rain-washed, watery orange - like street lights on a rainy night.

Ahead of them was the sun, sinking to meet the horizon in a graceful dip, its hot waves reddened by the pluming columns of smoke wafting up from the burning deserted wrecks here and there. It was very warm and still burned like crazy, heating up the burning, dusty, choking sand underneath them. CUTLAS very much enjoyed Middle Eastern sunsets, things of majesty and beauty - there was nothing on earth to rival them, at least, not in terms of sunsets.

The helicopter flew onward through the bright sunny air, occasionally doing lazy turns and loops here there, meandering about as the Captain had her fun, lazy pushing the stick side to side in a slightly amused fashion. She softly nudged it one way and back the other, making the long, black, smooth, graceful helicopter do soft maneuvers in the almost cloudless air; she batted the stick in almost the same manner as a kitten would a ball of yarn.

"Ey, Cap'in! You know this ain' fun-'ime with the helicop'er, righ'?" the lieutenant grinned from his co-pilot's seat next to her, the three silver stars on his clean and freshly-laundered British flight suit glinting in the Arabian sunlight. "We go' a mission 'o do," he stated, peering keenly over his darkly tinted aviator glasses briefly before turning quickly back to the stick clenched firmly in his hand.

The Captain grinned with her customary toothy grin, the teeth white but in bad need of braces. She leaned back in the elevated ejector seat, the four pin harness digging slightly into her stomach, and inched the helicopter onto a slight roll, sweeping a small pile of dust that had collected on the windshield and failed to be swept off by the blades off into the air below them. She righted the helicopter and lightly punched him in the arm. "Keep your eyes in the sky lieutenant," she replied to the young man.

He grinned and chewed on his stick of grass some more. "You know, I'll never understand why you guys say 'lieu'enan'' like it's go' an 'f' in i'."

She scoffed, "Oh, come on! You were raised in New Zealand for heavens sake! You're meant to say 'lieutenant' like that - come to think of it, you don't sound New Zealand at all."

"Ah well. And, FYI, down there we say 'Kiwi,'" he teased.

"Come off it!" she trilled in her resonating British accent, her hand slapping him on the shoulder. Suddenly, her face donned a serious look, "Take the wheel for a sec," she told him and leaned round her seat to look in the back of the expertly piloted MH-60L DAP Blackhawk. In the back, with the doors wide open, sat an assembly of men, most rather heavily built and holding assault rifles.

"Oi! You guys alright back there?" she asked, looking at each in turn. All of them gave her a small nod, some tipping their berets in her direction. One of them coughed and looked at her. He was taller than the rest of them and much less powerfully built. Over his insulating white clothes he was wearing kevlar with a pistol strapped to the side and was obviously suffering from the heat. On his nose sat a pair of very strongly wired glasses and from under his black beret could be seen some locks of fading red hair. His face looked kind, but filled with memories of experiences he'd rather not have had. He looked much older than he was, as if he'd been used too much in his life.

"Excuse me," he said politely, "You've been stationed here awhile, correct?" it seemed rhetorical and he continued without waiting for an answer. "What's it like down there?" he asked skeptically.

The Captain looked at him curiously. "Dear lord, you're CUTLAS, aren't you?" He nodded. The Captain shook her head, "I'll tell you this, it's a bloody crap-fest down there." She turned back to the instrument panel, already lit with its glowing reddish light; she had barely realized that the sun had set. Its last rays were already arching over the horizon.

There was silence and CUTLAS sat back in his bare-bones fabric seat, trying to take what little comfort he could get out of it. He looked out the bay doors and stuck his hand out into the jet stream, tilting it at various angles to make it go up and down. He smiled slightly, no matter where he was he loved the laws of aerodynamics - he knew his son would too. He had only just realized it was night and peered keenly out into the darkness.

It was so different from America, the Middle East. There were no streets in the desert, no road signs, no street lamps, no late-night clubs, no late traffic. It was quiet out here, for vast miles there was nothing but the darkness and sand. Here and there he could pinpoint pinpricks of the warm, orangey light of campfires. He turned his gaze upwards to the stars. Just hours ago he had been on an F-14 flying onto an aircraft carrier from halfway around the world.

As he looked out silently, the white, bathing light of the bay casting an eery shadow on him, he sent a prayer for his wife and children. He would come back from this, for them. He had been through worse. Heck, his recruitment had been worse. Probably. He felt a gaze on his neck and turned. An voice rang form the cockpit over the roar of the rotor blades, "Lights out, we'll be over the DZ, ETA twenty minutes." The lights dimmed to a very soft, low orange.

The man next to him nodded in his direction, "Do not worry, you will be fine," he grinned, "Besides, you have got us."

CUTLAS smiled gratefully at him, "Thanks Anil."

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He could picture his wife, her swaying, angelic body tempting him closer as she wandered about in their wonderfully scented flower garden. She bent over, teasing him further and he strode up to her, embracing her with a kiss and playfully grabbing her apron. She giggled and broke away from their kiss to run off into the yard. He laughed heartily and ran after her, trying, and deliberately failing, to grab the hem of her silky sun dress. "Mommy, Daddy!" came a cry as a young girl ran towards them. The man grinned, ran toward her, about to scoop her up…

He felt a gentle shake and opened his eyes to stare right into one of the reinforced halogen lights. He turned and straightened himself out in his seat, looking over to Anil. "We will be over the Drop Zone in about a minute," he told him, looking deep into his eyes, making sure he was ok. CUTLAS nodded a little too vigorously and slumped back into his chair.

Sure enough, in a minute or so, he felt the helicopter swaying gently in the air, like a gravity-defying feather, as it came to a hover over the desert. Down below and around he could see the fires of a camp. He stiffened in his chair, this was it. He heard the distinctive sound of ropes as the soldiers around him lowered them to the ground and began zipping down them on their harnesses until he and Anil were the last ones.

Anil nodded solemnly at him and attached his own line before jumping out the door and sliding down the rope. CUTLAS hesitantly clipped his own carabiner to the rope. He felt a gentle, but strong hand on his shoulder and turned to see the Captain leaning around in her chair. "Hey, see you on the other side," she smiled, slapping him on the shoulder, "And just remember, we'll be your eye in the sky. Things won't go wrong."

He smiled and turned, placing his booted feet on the edge on the bay door floors and feeling the wash of the rotor on his neck. Before he jumped out he heard her add "You really don't look cut out for this." He smiled but didn't turn around.

"I'm not" he replied before jumping into the inky blackness of the night, catching his last glimpse of the coldly lit attack helicopter and of the woman's face framed in the door, a long strand of green hair blowing in the wind.

* * *

><p>He sat up in his roughly woven cot, sweat drenching his face. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and wiped his face in a towel. It did more harm than good, sand and dust entering his firmly shut mouth. He spit it out and massaged his parched and cracked lips. He took a sip out of his canteen and swirled the bitter-tasting water around in his mouth before forcing himself to swallow it. He gagged.<p>

CUTLAS hated sleeping now. Utterly detested it. Always. Every time he went to bed. Horror. It was worse than the reality. Well, almost worse. They were stranded. He wasn't even sure they were trying to complete the mission anymore. He just wanted to get home. To his family, to his son, to his daughter, to his wife. But he was here, somewhere.

Every time he lay down; lay down and closed his eyes; lay down, closed his eyes and drifted off into a realm of sleep. Every time, his eyes would burn. He slept - or, more accurately, he sleep-wrestled with the cot. He tossed and turned. All he could do was stand helpless, watching, frozen in horror. He would stand rigid. The fire, the flames, the acidic, choking smoke.

Every time he would relive it. Standing, Anil dragging him along in his wake as he watched in devastation, in shame, in complete remorse for his failure. CUTLAS would relive it every night. He would watch the smoke trail, see the flash, here the explosion and watch as the fireball plummeted, like a cold hard rock through void, to the ground and hit with a deafening explosion. Watch, as the smoke rose; watch, as the flames licked the bent, broken and twisted metal frame; watch as the crowds of people swarmed on it like ants, machine guns firing in triumph.

He rubbed his face and sat up in his cot. He held up his badly bruised left arm up to his face and, in the cool, purple predawn light, squinted at the watch's bruised, burnt and dented face. He moved it back and forth, trying to catch the light of the single burning white light from outside his half-dug in hill on his watch's in an attempt to read the time.

Outside he could hear the rattling of a machine gun in the distance, keenly listen to the un-orchestrated booming thuds of explosions as they went off, close his eyes and meditate on the shouting, booing, hissing and war cries. How had humanity become so… beastly? A roaring, moral-less, depraved animal, killing what it wanted, murdering, raping and crushing. Even at five in the morning they were at it.

While looking through the small slot left by the tent between it and the dirt embankment that served as a window, CUTLAS heard someone enter his tent. He sighed, he knew it was time. The man handed him a pistol. "We move out in thirty minutes," he said, his voice commanding and final. CUTLAS nodded and took the pistol. Another day, another dollar.

"Time to move out" he muttered to himself before exiting the tent and stretching outside before the sun made things too hot.

* * *

><p>It was official. He hated his job. Well, not exactly. But it was boring as hell. All his life he had been given these jobs, defying the dreams he had had as a child. But that was just something to suck up, wasn't it? He had only been assigned here for four months, the same amount of time as… but he wasn't meant to know that, was he? He picked up another letter, scanned it briefly with all the interest of a fly reading a quantum physics book and shoved it in the associated out pile.<p>

He wasn't meant to know a lot of things he did. He knew why he was here. He was just another paper-pusher, wasn't he? Another 'mindless' drone of the system. A suit, an average joe, a run-of-the-mill, another steve. Just one more person to do the medial work. Just like that song… it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. That someone was him. He fished out another letter from the pile, _Mrs. Beckheart_, and tossed it into another pile.

Letters, letters and more letters. He gazed at the pile of them, needing to be sorted, and rubbed his head while grabbing another. _Flynn Family_ the letter read. _This_ was why he was here, this was what he'd been ordered to do, this was his job in this stupid paper-smelling trap. He'd been told it was for security purposes, he'd been told it was important. He snorted.

Important? Security? Important my foot, he thought, snorting again. Run of the mill indeed! Who else did jobs like these? Bad question, he realized, _hundreds_, if not thousands, of people did the exact same thing he did, sorting piles of paper all day. He could understand why it was called 'paper pushing.' By God, he'd die of blood loss from paper cuts before he'd drop dead of anything else.

Paper and more paper in this place. They could never get enough paper. Always, there was more being hauled in by the mailmen in their great sacks. Piles of the things. He couldn't imagine how they able to fit all of them inside the small post office, though it was probably a sign that he wasn't able to catch the slightest glimpse of the walls amongst the leaning piles of letters everywhere. If asked, he wouldn't be able to tell you what color they were.

He sighed audibly and slumped back in his rickety wooden seat, its splintery wood digging slightly into his fresh, clean black suit. He rested his elbows on the small faded blue table and interlocked his fingers, resting his hardly prominent and clean-shaven chin on top. Why had he ever chosen this as his job? Because it got _money_?, was the simple answer. Yes, it was boring. Yes, it was tedious. And yes, it didn't have too many perks. One of the few it did have was a good pay.

He was so glad his job wasn't being a mailman. That would be a never-ending crap-hole, he thought. No, he had only been stationed at the post-office for three and a half months. Every one liked him, he was a clean cut and respectable young mean, smartly dressed in a business suit and a smile that told you he was intelligent, but not cocky. He was intelligent indeed. From starting out as a junior official he had risen quickly through the ranks until he landed here.

The boss liked him. The postmaster liked him. Everyone liked him. He was average. He was normal. He was an _average joe_. Everywhere he went, people smiled at his carefree and hardworking attitude. He prided himself on his moral and ethical standards. And that was why he had chosen to uphold the law in the very same way that all small boys dreamed of. Nobody would have _ever_ suspected he was NSA Liaison to the CIA Danville department.

He stretched out his arm and grabbed the letter he had been holding previously back. Very clear. Very, very clear, was the address: _82 Maple Drive_. Those were the golden words. The words that made sure this letter would never get to its intended destination. This letter, that had travelled straight from the scorching deserts of the Middle East, blow by sand and hand written in a locally-made ink brewed by Arab merchants. Across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and across the wide west. Intended to reach a specific, very cared-about, person. And it would never get there.

He felt a twinge in his heart as he turned the letter in his hand. This man, this hardworking man. A defender of the country, a defender of freedom. Out on a dangerous mission upholding the integrity and liberty of his country was sending a letter to his loved ones at home. And after all that, this was what he got. A young, career-focused NSA agent thoughtlessly making sure it never saw the light of day to protect against "threats to national security."

What a joke, he scoffed. Who was he to stop this man's letter? He had done nothing but serve the nation tirelessly, putting it ahead of his family and social life. And now he wanted to give them one slight comfort and the liberty was being denied to him. He deserved to comfort his family, to assure him that he was not dead. He was a good man. The agent had met him once.

But that was part of the job. The man's eyes hardened. He knew this was what would happen when he signed up. He was an agent. All contact with the outside world was to be severed. Anything outside the mission did not exist. He did not exist. He was a shadow. A ghost. A phantom of the most intelligent kind. Highly trained and emotionally un-reactive; at least, he was supposed to be.

And, it was his job, as CIA Liaison, Danville Department, to do his duty to his country and place the letter in a dusty NSA file in a derelict warehouse where it would never again be known to anyone outside of the NSA. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Wasn't that always what Spock had said? And it was true. By stopping this letter getting to his family he was doing his country, and his kinsfolk, a favor. He was doing it for the greater good.

Or was he? His eyes softened as he twiddled with the letter absentmindedly and he listened to the tiny voice in the back of his head that he had been ignoring for seven years. This was going to this man's family. His wife and children whom he loved. Was this really going to benefit everyone? Or even anyone? Should he really be doing this? Was it likely that this man had put national security? He took one hand off the letter and reached down to the black briefcase that the letter was supposed to be disappearing in. His hand twitched and he hesitated. A bead of sweat, that had nothing to do with the hot summer air outside, rolled down the side of his cleanly cut face.

His job, or the right thing? Nobody would know… his hand slid over the smooth briefcase and clicked it open. He looked at the letter and turned it over in his hand once more then dropped it in the briefcase. He'd make the decision later, he decided. For the time being, the letter could stay in the briefcase. "Hey, your shift's over!" he heard someone call to him from the front. He nodded to himself and shut the briefcase with a '**snap!**' He'd make the decision about the letter tomorrow.

He stood up out of the chair and stretched with a yawn. As one of the mailmen passed him, going into the back office, they exchanged a polite "Hello" before the agent grabbed his briefcase and navigated his way through the tower cliffs of paper precariously oiled on the surrounding desks. As he walked he thought about the letter, what should he do? "Have a nice day," he smiled at the lady in the front office as he walked out of the shop. How _on earth_ was he going to make the decision? He sighed, he needed a coffee.

As the agent left the janitor walked into his office to sweep it and give it a general clean. It wasn't very dirty. just covered in too much paper. He grumbled as he swept up letter after letter on the floor. _Beckheart, Charleston, Flynn, O'Niel…_ the letters were truly endless. He swept and swept until they were all up off the floor and deposited neatly for sorting on the desks. Someone would get to them soon, he decided. Boy, it was a long time since he'd seen the name 'Flynn' around.

* * *

><p>Central Tel Aviv was nice this time of year, he thought. He walked past some of the medium height skyscraper apartments and raised his head to admire them. They were nothing. He had seen Western skyscrapers in America. Those were skyscrapers. Towering over the streets, homes of the extreme aristocracy and plutocracy. These were mere imitations of what the Americans had built.<p>

But it was his country. It was Israel. He had always loved Israel. Reading stories about it and dreaming about how he, no one else, could make Israel great, a giant among nations. When he had finally set his foot on Israeli soil he had fallen in love with the country. And now here he was, walking the nicely paved streets of Tel Aviv under the warm Israeli sun.

But he couldn't enjoy it. No, he couldn't enjoy it. He was here on a mission. Or, more correctly, he was here to get a mission. He was making his way idly towards a ten o'clock meeting with the Mossad Director of Foreign Operations [Western Asia]. He stood for a second more, looking up at the fluffy white clouds making their own way over the top of the skyscrapers on a firm, steady eastern breeze, before he looked back down at the sticky black asphalt ground and shoved his hands into his neatly stitched suit's pockets before starting to walk toward HaKirya again.

He walked past more buildings and peered at each curiously until he came to the gate to the fenced-off military base. As he got close to the vomit-inducingly clean stainless-steel gate one of the IDF guards, a slightly shorter than average man with dark tan skin and a small, messy mustache that looked like it had simply been allowed to grow but had become stunted, dressed in pine forest green tactical gear, held out his hand. "Identification?" he asked, his tone robotic and emotionless, something generally expected of soldiers, or, at least, guards.

The suited man turned slightly, looking on the inside flap of his jacket while fishing around in his pocket. After a few minutes, during which the guard's face did not visibly move but seemed to become harder, as if he was not amused at all, the suited man held out a smoothly laminated card with his picture and a name on it. The guards took it in his roughly, and dustily, gloved hand and looked at it scrutinizingly for what seemed like a millisecond. "Special Agent?" he asked in gruff Hebrew.

The man nodded and the guard handed the card back to him. The man didn't question the guard's judgement as he passed through the heavily wired and alarmed security gate and simply accepted the fact that the guards were hand picked, sometimes; he was sure this one had been. He glanced back down at the card in his hand and sighed before slipping it back into his pocket. He didn't like being Agent CASPER, it wasn't the being an agent that bothered him, it was the name. Honestly, they couldn't give him a better name than CASPER? He sounded like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

He shook his head to clear it of these, not so much unnerving as just plain _weird_, thoughts and shoved the card back in his pocket. He looked up at the glass doors of the compound just as he tucked his coat back in and pushed them open, revealing a large square corridor with smooth, un-chipped grey walls and light blue-grey carpeting. It was almost as if robots lived here, he thought.

Just as he was walking in, trying to ignore the horribly menacing-looking guards on both sides of the doors, he was greeted by a young man a a neat sky blue suit with a large, pearly white smile that seemed to stretch his face and a bowler haircut that was so neatly combed CASPER would have thought it belonged to a doll had he not seen it clearly attached to the man in front of him. The thought that it might have been a wig had barely occurred to him when the man open his mouth. "Hello, Corporal! I'm Lieutenant Amir with Amam. I'll be assisting you indirectly in your upcoming mission - it's a joint operation. Here, this way to the briefing room."

CASPER could've sworn he felt the wind get sucked right out of him as the Lieutenant talked and was overwhelmed enough that he just took a breath and followed him down the corridor, through several more side-corridors, through some locked doors and down one or two staircases. CASPER hadn't even had a chance to introduce himself before he was sat down in an unfurnished room and found himself face to face with the Director of Foreign Operations [Western Asia], Amir seated next to him.

"Good afternoon, Corporal, Lieutenant," he greeted them rather uninterestedly, to CASPER he seemed like was the hyper-serious workaholic type; when he opened his mouth barely a second later, it almost confirmed it for CASPER. "Right, down to business." He reached down under the table to a briefcase and pulled out a thin dead-yellow file with the Hollywood-esque 'Top Secret' stamped in Hebrew across the front which he laid down on the table, scooting it over in front of CASPER and Amir.

He folded his hands and rested his elbows on the table staring intently while CASPER slipped open the file and pulled out the few sheets of paper and pictures that were inside. After reading them over and glancing at some of the photographs he turned his attention back to the Director. "This is quite a high value target… and a major asset to the Americans," he stated, looking intently at the Director. He glanced back down at the papers, "What, exactly, is the mission?"

The Director smiled slightly, it didn't suit him, and reached over to one of the pictures. "You catch on fast, Corporal. This-" he held up the picture, "-is him in Moscow, 1978. This-" he held up another picture of the same man talking with another, "-is him in 1995, Jerusalem… _after_ his defection. This-" he pointed to the man he was talking with, "-is Sergey Kuropatkin, a Russian agent working in Jerusalem. We suspect that his loyalties may not lie with the Americans."

"That could be a major breech," observed CASPER, "But why the sudden interest? That was almost five years ago, why now?"

The Director sighed, "Five years, five decades. What difference does it make?" he asked rhetorically, "But the reason now is that our intelligence reports indicate that the US, in cooperation with the British, have inserted him into Southern Pakistan in, what we believe to be, a mission to track the movement of nuclear weapons. We also theorize that the Russians, or some of the more extreme remains of the KGB, have involvement and that this man is also involved, meaning that-"

"The nukes could be possibly compromised," CASPER finished for him.

The Director nodded. "Your mission is to track this man down, assess the threat level, if he is involved to stop him and, if necessary, kill him."

"What deems it necessary to kill him?"

"If he shows any sign of attempting to take control of the nukes. Amir here will be indirectly assisting you as your contact, stay close," the Director finished. All CASPER could do was nod, he hated these missions.

* * *

><p><strong>AN - ****A new start to my **_**It All Started With a Letter**_** story. Sorry it took so long but I've been really bogged down in schoolwork and updating will be really slow. Stick with me though.**

**Hope you like it. These are all around fourteen years before the main story and should hopefully explain some things as well as adding depth to the story.**

**Characters (excluding CUTLAS, CASPER, Amir, the Captain, Anil and the Director): Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh.**

**Story (and other characters): Me! **

**P.S. The MH-60L DAP is an American Special Operations helicopter, Tel Aviv is a city in Israel, Mossad and Amam are Israeli intelligence agencies and HaKirya is an Israeli military base in Tel Aviv.**


	2. The Letter

Chapter 1: The Letter

Some stories are about friends. Some are about deeper relationships. Others are about events and times. Stories help us relive times that have passed or times that will never be. They act as an extension and canvas to our imaginations. They evoke feelings of happiness and sadness. They make us laugh, they make us cry, they make our hearts freeze with anticipation.

It is the mark of a good writer that they are able to do these. To meld and shape their words into a running string of art, subtly adding pieces to the story here and there, all in one uninterrupted, mellifluous flow.

This particular story is not about normal life, rather, it is about what small things can do to change your normal life. How one, utterly insignificant object; one long lost, forgotten letter, can send someone's life in an entirely new direction. To meet new people, make new friends, see new sights, find new loves and move one step closer to the matured human being that has spent their life well, to the fullest.

This story is about all those things. But mostly, it's about a boy. Fourteen years of age and separated from his biological father. The boy didn't mind, until he found a letter. This is the story of how he found it, why he found it and what happened afterward.

* * *

><p>Linda Flynn-Fletcher awoke groggily to the sounds of merry thumping and laughter. Amid the merry cacophony came the chatter of an animal. This prompted more laughter and Linda heard the jubilant voice of her only son chatting merrily to the platypus. She smiled, they were always active, always fun-loving and always… furry?<p>

Linda opened her eyes and reached her hands up. There was another chatter and she quickly pulled Perry off her face. She spit some hair out of her mouth and coughed in an annoyed fashion; "Perry!" she cried. The platypus chattered again and she set him down on the ground, glancing at the alarm clock as she did so. This was slightly annoying, they had woken her up at seven o'clock. But, then again, they always woke up a seven o'clock.

She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes profusely. She heard a groan next to her and looked over lovingly to her husband, Lawrence. The quiet British antique dealer lay sound asleep in the bed, a sprouting mop of blankets, arms, legs and fabric disjointedly covering his sleep-softened body. She looked over at him and smiled.

For a brief second she was overcome with nostalgia. She could so vividly remember those sunlit mornings. She had been young, she had been carefree, she had been childless, they had been a couple. Every morning she would wake up to find his untidy, yet silk-smooth, hair in her face, a bright, flaming, blood red clashing with her own soft orange. But he was gone and he was never coming back.

She could picture his face, rain-streaked and dark, silhouetted in the dark wooden doorway of this very house. She had been scared, she had been young. Tearfully, she had held a week old Phineas, wrapped in his favorite blue blanket, in her arms. She had softly cried as he had looked into her eyes and told her he was leaving, that it was important, that he would be back. But he had never come back.

She looked up from the palm of her hands and into the crisp colors of the room around her, the dark images of an inky black street lines with waxy-yellow glowing lamps being replaced with greens and blues and reds and yellows. She lifted her darkly lidded eyes from her hands and stood up from the bed, stretching. This was here, this was now. She was happy.

Linda softly lifted her aging, but still radiantly beautiful, body from the bed, leaving an imprint upon the thin, faded and worn bed-sheets. She lifted it quietly, so as not to wake Lawrence, and walked over to the shower. She needed a shower. Not physically, but mentally. She needed to clear her head, it was too full.

She enveloped herself in the steam, wrapping it around her like a cloak. It washed, it cleansed, it soaked, it calmed. She needed calm. She needed to forget. The steam helped her to forget. The steam washed all her pains away, all her chronic, mental pains.

Breakfast. Time to return to the monotonous, predictable, regular rhythm of normal life. Normal. What was ever normal? She made her way out of her room. No day was ever the same as the previous. All had twists and turns in unexpected directions. All were unique. Normal. What was normal? Normal was providing her children with a mother, feeding them breakfast, helping them mature and grow, being the best mother she could be. Normal was being the best wife she could be. A woman to love and be loved.

And so she would. "Hey, Ferb! Ready to end the summer with a bang?" she heard Phineas exclaim as she entered the kitchen. She loved him dearly. He was her son and her husband's son in so many ways. In almost everything he did she could see his father working in him, in his bright blue eyes and his fiery red hair. She was so proud of Phineas, proudest a mother could be.

"Hey boys!" she laughed. It was usual. But it was loving. And she would never stop greeting the unstoppable pair in this same way until the day her heart stopped. It was a way to show them she loved them, a way to show that she cared, a way to remind them both that she was their mother. "What are your plans for the day?" she asked jovially, eyeing their empty plates interestedly.

"Well Ferb and I wanted to end the summer with a bang; you know, before school starts tomorrow. We were wondering if we could throw a concert and party in the backyard, may we?" he asked, grinning goofily.

Ah! How could she resist him? "Oh! What imaginations you boys have! Why not?" Phineas grinned in thanks and he and Ferb rushed out the backdoor. How much he reminded her of Frederick. She smiled softly and turned back to cleaning the dishes.

* * *

><p>Phineas rushed out the back, Ferb closely in tow. He laughed and bowled himself over on the grass, rolling until he made it to the tree, Ferb sitting casually next to him with a text book entitled '101 Scientific Ways to Teach Your Platypus Tricks.' Phineas squinted at the cover for a second than rolled himself right side up. "Hey, Ferb! Good book?" he asked.<p>

Ferb looked over the book and blinked at him. Phineas blinked back and shrugged. "Yeah, I don't know what we should do for the concert either. Maybe Isabella has some ideas," he suggested.

"Watcha doin'?"

Phineas turned and grinned. "Hey Isabella. You know how it's the last day of summer vacation?"

Isabella turned a mild shade of pink and batted her eyelashes at Phineas endearingly. "Yeah, and I also know that there's a dance coming up…"

Phineas' eyes widened and he turned to Ferb, grinning wildly. "That's it! That's what's missing! _Dancing!_ Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!" he exclaimed.

Isabella sighed audibly but the sigh was quickly turned into a gasp as she was hauled along in the wake of Phineas, her hand squarely clenched in his. "Ok, Isabella, you and the Fireside Girls set up the stage here. Ferb will direct the lighting-" he pointed to where Ferb was already guiding a truck into the backyard, "-Buford and Baljeet can work on the catering-" as if on cue the duo walked into the gate and said a polite hello to Ferb, who nodded in their direction, "-I'll work on the dance floor and Django and Irving can work on the music." Phineas blinked around, "I think that's everyone, you got that Isabella?"

But Isabella hadn't, she was swooning to no end and quickly snapped out of her trance at Phineas' voice. "What, huh? Oh, yeah yeah! I got it," she grinned awkwardly. As Phineas left she breathed a sigh of relief and whipped out her phone. "Gretchen, it's Isabella…"

* * *

><p>"Hey, Ferb!" Phineas called, "you got enough wiring up there?"<p>

Ferb gave him the thumbs up and intently turned back to his work. Phineas smiled serenely and swayed over to the dance floor, currently a large section of grass. Phineas blinked at it. How was he going to model it? He lifted up his fingers and examined the grass, he was going to need some tiles. And some cement. And some jib board.

He pulled out his cellphone and grabbed a shovel. As he dialed the number he made a mark around the outside of the grass and began dividing it. "Hey, Frank! It's Phineas! Phineas Flynn. Yeah, look, I need a favor. Can you get me one hundred and thirty four multicolor graphene manipulated tiles? You can? Great! See ya!"he hung up and wiped some sweat off his brow. It had been awhile since he'd had to use a shovel, shame the power-tools were out.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't here Isabella approach. "Hey, Phineas! We finished the stage!" Isabella pointed over to where a fully built stage now sat. The rest of the Fireside Girls behind her cheered and Isabella grinned.

Phineas turned quickly and clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Now, do you girls think you could deliver these invitations and put up these posters?"

"Sure, Phineas. We can definitely do that."

"Oh, actually, Isabella, I could use some help with this. Do you think you could?"

"Sure!" she bounded over happily to his side and stood beaming at him, sunlight shining from her every pore.

* * *

><p>Phineas sat down on the grass and grinned. Isabella walked over with lemonade and was followed by Buford and Baljeet. Phineas smiled at them all. "Hey! Great job, guys! We're almost finished."<p>

"Hey, Ferb! We good to go?" he called up to his step-brother, who was, at that moment, dangling above the stage, suspended by a helicopter. He gave the thumbs-up and cut the cord that was binding him to the helicopter, landing expertly on the stage. Phineas and the rest clapped and Ferb bowed low.

Everyone grinned and Phineas sat up, holding a remote. "Excellent. Ok, Ferb, let's powered it up." He and Ferb both simultaneously clicked the buttons on their remotes. Their was a humming sound and the various stage lights began to flicker before pumping out bright, dazzling beams of light full blast.

Ferb shielded his eyes and watched as the rest started up. The electronic audial equipment hummed and the air around it began to crackle with an electric buzz, making Ferb's hair stand up on end. Phineas laughed and continued watching everything else, scrutinizingly inspecting it, his gaze seeming to x-ray the equipment.

Phineas looked over the checklist, shouting over the crackling and music that had just started up. "Lights, check; music-" he rubbed his head and winced, "-check; stage, check; dance floor…" he looked over to the dance floor. It was silent and unmoving. Puzzled, Phineas walked over and lightly kicked the command console for the dance floor. Immediately, there was a grinding, fizzling noise and a small wisp of smoke issued from under the dance floor.

Phineas, in surprise, leapt back, staring wildly at the dance floor and almost landing in Isabella's arms. Ferb clicked another button on the remote and immediately the music stopped, the lights faded and the crackling subsided. Phineas jumped forward of Isabella, blushing slightly, but quickly brushed himself off and regained his composure before walking over to inspect the machine in the newly re-instituted calm.

Phineas knelt down in front of it and carefully pulled the backplate off the console. Some more smoke and steam issued forth and he leaned back. He blinked, wishing the surprise off his face, and pulled his torch out of his pocket to inspect the inside. Everything was there, the CPU, the motherboard, the RAM, the hard-drive, the processors… everything, everything except… "The power coupling unit," Phineas whispered, half to himself.

The gang, excluding Ferb, Baljeet and Irving looked surprised. "The what-now?" Buford asked gruffly. He didn't need to say it, everyone else's look said it. Irving smacked his forehead making a loud '**crack!'** that broke the silence.

Phineas turned to face them, comprehension on his face. "The power-coupling unit, PCU. I got a call to pick it up this morning from the post office but I forgot. Without it the power won't feed reliably to the dance floor and control panel… hence-" he gestured at the fried console. "Darn, I'd better go get it than," he sighed, "you guys fix the dance floor, I'll get the PCU."

Everyone nodded and Phineas walked over to the garage where he hopped on his bike and was off down the early afternoon sunlit street, toward the post office. Isabella looked slightly exaggerated, "Why can't he be that understanding about our relationship or my feelings?" she asked in a frustrated tone. Ferb stifled a giggle by disguising it as a sniff. Isabella glared at him.

"Come on, we'd better get this dance floor fixed up before Phineas gets back." Isabella turned her glare towards Irving and he raised his hands, as if to shield himself, "Hey, I'm just saying." Ferb scooted over to the console and out of Isabella's reach, Irving followed suit. Isabella grumbled a bit and walked over too.

* * *

><p>Phineas had never been a biker. Not a professional, not even an amateur. He barely saw it as a sport. Sure, he liked it as a recreational activity and he had used it in more than a few of his projects, but biking as a sport had never, ever been his thing. He didn't like power biking long distances and had never adapted his body to being able to.<p>

Something he was regretting now, as he puffed along the sidewalk, under the shade of the towering skyscrapers, past people on their daily duties toward the post office. It was then, as he rounded the second to last corner, that Phineas decided something: he was never, ever going to take biking up as a sport in school, or anywhere else for that matter. Though maybe it was time he got fitter.

He wheezed once more, gaining the stares of several more passers-by, stand-operators and the like. He couldn't do it, he had to slow down. Just a hundred meters to the post office and he was giving up. No! He wasn't giving up. He pressed down hard on the pedal and shot the bike forward again. His lungs burned, his shoulders ached, his muscles were sore.

You can do, you can do it, he told himself. He hadn't even realized he was already in front of the post office. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore, his lungs were going to burst. He gasped and leapt off his bike and slumped on the ground, trying to catch his breath.

It was then, as he stared at the leather shoes and sandals that passed him by, that he noticed what he was in front of. He would have smacked himself in the forehead and laughed, but he was too pooped. He sat up and gingerly extracted the bike chain from his pocket, looping it around his bike and making sure to fasten it properly.

He stood up and stretched. He was feeling much better. He looked around, at the concrete sidewalk stretched out along either side of the main road, at the various shrubs and exotic trees the Fireside Girls had planted, at the refreshing, cool shadows the skyscrapers gave. It was nice. Phineas was feeling like Phineas again.

As he entered the post office he was greeted by the smells of fresh paper and ink. He gagged for a second then caught his breath and walked up to the old, vulture-like lady at the counter. "May I help you?" she asked, turning her sharp, beady eyes upon him in a look that gave the impression that she didn't want to help at all.

Phineas tried his best not to be intimidated and smiled kindly up at her. "Yes, I'm here to collect mail. Uh, under 'Flynn' I think. 'F-l-y-n-n.'" The old lady gave him a once-over and hopped off her chair.

"Very well," she croaked and shuffled off to the back of the office. It was only then that Phineas noticed she was a good six or seven inches shorter than him. He goggled in surprise. How did the old lady manage to make herself so… tall?

She returned a few minutes later carrying a brown paper package and a letter. "That'll be fifty cents sir," she droned, hoisting herself back onto her perch on the stool again where she could peer down at him, as if he was some piece of food she suspected was moldy.

Phineas blinked in surprise and looked back and forth between her and the letter. "Excuse me, but I don't think that letter's mine."

"Flynn, right?" Phineas nodded. The old lady inspected the letter again, "It's yours," she said. Phineas looked surprised but handed over the fifty cents and took the package and letter. He closed one eye and peered at the letter, it almost appeared as if he was straining. The lady leaned over her desk, her tightly buttoned red and white shirt catching and whining against the desk, and looked, with a mixture of curiosity, concern and perplexity, at Phineas. "You alright?"

Phineas took a moment to register this. "Huh?" he asked, confused.

"Are you alright?"

Phineas distractedly nodded, never tearing his gaze from the letter; _82 Maple Road_ it was addressed. "Yeah… yeah. It's just that I can't understand why this would be here and not in my mailbox." The lady nodded serenely, squinting over her sharp, half-moon spectacles.

"You're the first person to request anything under the name 'Flynn' in years," she told him.

Phineas looked surprised. "How long, exactly?"

She shrugged uninterestedly and kept filing through her paperwork, taking a minute to answer. "Longer than I've been here, I can tell you that."

Phineas gasped, he was assuming, judging by her age, that she had worked here a very long time. He was about to ask the lady something else when, as if she had read his mind, she spoke, "Will there be anything else, sir?" she asked, clearly implying that, if there was something else, there shouldn't be. Phineas clamped his mouth shut and made his way out the doorway, the lady's horribly judgmental scrutiny following him all the way.

Even as he hopped on his bike he could feel her gaze on his neck, as if someone were shining a black light on it; it felt hot and sore. All the way, as he biked home, he couldn't shake the feeling that the old lady was watching him… with her mind or actual eyes he wasn't sure. Man, that lady was creepy! he thought. It was then that he made another decision, he was never, ever going back to that post-office.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that, even as he pulled up the driveway, the joyous calls of his friends floating to him over the fence, he didn't notice anything, the letter was stuck in his mind, as if it had been burned there with a hot brand. He didn't notice Isabella smile at him, Ferb give the slightest indication that he was concerned, something only Phineas could detect; Irving take a picture with a blinding flash, Blajeet reach for and take the PCU, Buford gaze somberly at him and Django raise and eyebrow.

It was as if he was living in slow motion, or, more accurately, as if everyone else was in slow motion. He walked through the backyard, into the cool house and up the stairs to his room, Isabella's worried frown escaping him. iThe letter, the letter…/i he could see it, in his mind and his hand. He hadn't seen a return address.

He closed the door and drew the blinds, switching on his desk-lamp. He lifted up the letter, tightly clutched in his hand. It was shaking violently, was a pale, sickly white and was slick with cold sweat. Phineas didn't know why, but this letter made him uneasy, it was very ominous.

Phineas sat at his desk, with the blinds drawn the room was dark and musty, the single reading lamp he had on a solitary beacon of warmth. He coughed slightly and took out a letter-opener. Gingerly, his hands still shaking, his tore the letter open and looked inside.

A slightly brown and faded piece of paper fell out and fluttered lightly onto his desk. Phineas unfolded it and looked hard. His jaw almost dropped, there, on the paper, in a loopy all-over-the-place handwriting so like his own, were the words iLinda, my darling…/i

He dropped the letter and recoiled from his desk, knocking over the reading lamp in the process. The room became suddenly dark. He felt as if he was suffocating. He didn't register the knocking or the subwoofer dance beat emanating from outside. He simply collapsed on his bed and lay there.

He could have lain there for hours, days, years… the door creaked open and Phineas heard a scuffling noise followed by soft footsteps. The door closed again and Phineas heard his brother's bed depress as someone lay down in it. Phineas didn't turn around and when it became clear that he wasn't going to talk Ferb coughed and spoke up. "You missed the party," he stated unemotionally, though, for Phineas, the emotion was plainly clear. Ferb never spoke, it was a sign. He was dearly worried for his step-brother but knew boundaries. "Perry's already back"

Phineas didn't make a move or a sound. Ferb rolled over and made no more sound. Phineas thought he'd try to get to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>AN - ****Sorry for the delay, this is my first story in real time. Hope the content makes up for the delay, enjoy!**

**I was gonna put what's actually in the letter but I decided to push it till next chapter a) because I'm not sure how I'll write it and b) because I like suspense and doing it this way occurred to me while I was writing it - it just seemed better.**

**Characters: Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh**

**Story: Me**

**P.S. I _really_ hope this doesn't seem rushed, I'm suffering from a bad case of writer's block and this is helping.**

***Update* - I've combined chapters 1 & 2, hope you don't mind.**


	3. First Day of School

**Chapter 2: First Day of School**

It was already half-past seven and at maximum sunlight when Phineas awoke the next morning. He hadn't slept well, he had dark bags under his eyes, his brow was in an almost permanent furrow and he just generally looked disheveled. He slumped out of bed, his limitless source of energy seemingly depleted, and onto the floor, noticing both the time and Ferb's already-made bed.

He had broken his record. Through almost fourteen years he never once failed to wake up before seven o'clock. Not when he had been three and prone to sleep problems, not when he was twelve and dealing with a few all-nighters. Never, not once, had the alarm clock beaten Phineas Flynn. It was bad now, the alarm clock not only beat him, it failed to wake him up too.

Phineas rubbed his eyes tiredly, like a sleepy toddler who had been woken up from a particularly restful nap. But there had been nothing restful about Phineas' sleep. All through the night he had tossed and turned, cold sweats breaking out here and there, all the while the feeling of suffocation creeping up on him, an ominous feeling of dread. All through the night the minimal amount of the letter he had read had sent him nightmares the like of which he had never had before.

Phineas couldn't remember falling asleep. He couldn't remember his dreams. All he could remember was looking, wide-eyed, like a terrified child, at the blank, blue wall in front of him and Perry scuffling a bit in his sleep. But he was awake now. He didn't want to be. He wasn't sure what he wanted, which was worse, the dreams or the reality. He couldn't think of a single person who could comfort him.

A cloud moved from its position in front of the sun and Phineas' room was suddenly filled with a dazzling golden light. He turned and squinted before pulling the curtains closed. The room was dark once more. He looked around at the blue walls and sea-green paintings. At the pictures of friends and family. At the computer sitting unattended. The rays of sunshine were still shining through to a minimal degree and Phineas realized something: he wasn't going to get back to sleep.

He stood up off the floor and stretched. Perhaps a shower would do him good. He yawned and made his way to the shower. Why was he so gloomy? It was all that stupid letter… but since when did he call _anything_ stupid? Phineas yawned again, he was tired. He pushed the door open with a creaking noise and looked around at the dusty, and strangely deserted, hallway.

The house was quiet apart from a low murmur coming from downstairs. Phineas shook his head to try and clear it, his ears felt as though they had been filled with a very his, low-viscosity, liquid. He felt sick. He pushed the door to the bathroom open and pushed it shut behind him. The room was small, it seemed smaller than he remembered.

It was white, and sterile, cleanliness to a degree if perfection so high that each surface seemed to be constructed and polished of light itself. His mother had sure gone all out on this bathroom, Phineas decided. Everything was so white and shiny, even the shower which, now that Phineas looked at it, seemed very appealing.

* * *

><p>Ferb crunched his cereal a bit. The taste seemed somehow muted in his mouth as he swirled it around. Ever since Phineas' behavior the previous night he had felt very worried. He had been deep in thought the whole night. He crunched again and for a brief second a burst of sweet nectar played on his tongue. He tried to savor the flavor before it went but the sugar had other plans.<p>

The taste quickly faded and Ferb returned to crunching his tasteless mush. The only thing that would have made it more boring, he thought, were if it were grey. now that he thought about it, there was a serious possibility that it had turned grey. Ferb sighed in his mind, it was never supposed to be boring around the Flynn-Fletcher home.

As he sat at the kitchen table, facing the pale orange painting-adorned wall with a thousand yard stare that would send an elephant to the psychiatric ward, he heard the soft sound of muted footsteps behind him. He turned hopefully and saw his mother, clad in a pink dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, walking down the stairs, her hair messy and her eyes not totally devoid of sleep. Ferb's hopefulness dies somewhat.

Linda yawned and turned to Ferb. "First day of school! How exciting!" she tried to put more enthusiasm into it but was too tired, the speech coming out with a slightly dampened feel of what she had intended. Ferb nodded in what seemed to be a thoughtful manner and, as if from nowhere, pulled out a steaming cup of tea. He gestured her to sit. Linda smiled warmly and took the cup, warming her hands with it, before pulling up a chair next to Ferb.

"So what's going on?" Linda asked, a twinkling glint in her eye as she smiled broadly at Ferb. Ferb raised and lowered his shoulder slightly, barely indicating in the direction of the vacant chair next to him. Linda glanced at the chair and smiled a bit, "Phineas tired out, is he?" Ferb didn't respond and waited. Linda's eyes widened a tad and she looked back at the chair. "Wow, he must really be out of it."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth before the contradiction came along in the form of a shower starting. Linda smiled a bit goofily, in a way that reminded Ferb freakily of Phineas, and put a hand over her mouth to stifle the slight giggle. "At least that means I won't have to wake him up and drag him out of bed."

Ferb raised his shoulder the slightest amount. "I don't believe you've ever had to do that," he thought out loud.

Linda's grin sagged an unnoticeable increment and she said, with the air of someone remembering something they had tried for a long time to remember, "Oh, that's right, only Candace."

Ferb blinked and looked back down at his bowl of mushy Rainbow Flakes - they certainly weren't fruity anymore - and blinked again, mentally sighing. He looked back to his mother, who had picked up the paper and began reading, and told himself to cheer up. He wasn't even sure why he was sad and he certainly didn't have any good reason to be.

A gust of hot, moist air hit the back of Ferb's neck and he turned to look over the back of his chair. Phineas, looking fractured and unrested but otherwise clean, was coming down the stairs in his usual orange and white trimmed polo shirt and royal blue cargo shorts. He looked better than when Ferb had last seen him - twisting, turning and drenched in sweat in bed - but still had that same tormented… presence in his eyes.

"Hey, Ferb. How ya doin'?" he asked, pulling up his chair to the table and pouring himself some Fruity Rainbow Flakes fresh from the box into his bowl. Ferb blinked and Phineas, without glancing in the slightest, responded with a "Yeah, yeah. I hear ya." Ferb doubted whether Phineas had actually comprehended what he had "said" but soon dismissed it - their unspoken brotherly connection was above doubting.

Ferb waited for Phineas to say more, as he always did, and was extremely surprised when he did not; he just sat, looking hollowly at the sliding door as if trying to bore a hole through it, chewing his cereal. Ferb was very perturbed by this and turned back to his bowl of cereal. It was too mushy to eat now. Ferb pushed it away and stood up to check he was ready for school. Polo shirt, check; jeans, check; vest, check; backpack, Ferb looked over to the corner where his smart green backpack sat, check; brush teeth…

When Ferb returned from brushing his teeth he found Phineas standing with his backpack ready, Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher going over him with a brush and comb. "Mom, I'm fine, I look fine."

Linda shook her head. "Uh-uh, you are going to leave this house looking smart as ever. Glad I only have to do this to one sibling."

"What about Ferb?"

"Ferb's already dressed smartly." Linda pointed. Ferb smiled a bit sheepishly and caught himself. What was wrong with him? He never showed this much emotion. It must have been his worry for Phineas… yes, that was it. That was the…

There was a loud honking noise outside and Linda jumped, as if an electric current had suddenly been run through her. She swiped Phineas with the comb several more times , kissed him and Ferb on the cheek and pushed them out the door. "Bye, boys! Have fun! Your Father will be home after school!" she called out the door to them as they wandered toward the school bus.

As Phineas and Ferb stepped on the bus, Ferb's shoe making an odd squeaking noise as it made contact with the grip-coated metal flooring of the bus, there was a tremendous cheer. Phineas flinched slightly and half-raised his hand to cover his ear. Around the bus came cries of "Phineas!" and "Ferb!" and people all turned to look at them. For the first time in a day, Phineas smiled slightly.

"Hey, good to see you too," he would say to one person and "Glad you enjoyed it," to others. Phineas made his way steadily to the back of the dilapidated school bus, with its whining pneumatic doors, chipping yellow paint and stiff fabric seats, and took a seat in front of Isabella, Ferb bouncing into the one next to him. As Ferb sat down the bus gave a lurch and started moving forward, its old rubber tires crackling on the asphalt outside their house.

Isabella grinned and put down her book, leaning forward and resting her arms on the back of their seat. "Hey, Phineas! Watcha doin'?" she smiled.

Phineas' smile widened and he turned to look at her. "Nothing much, you?"

"Well, I was wondering what happened to you at the party last night. I was hoping you'd dance with me."

Phineas smile faltered slightly but he propped it back up. "Oh, sorry. Maybe next time, Isabella."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Mmm…?"

"Where were you?"

Phineas scratched his ear and averted his eyes. "Uh, I was…"

"Dinner-Bell!" Buford cried, storming up the aisle, Baljeet tucked carefully under his arm. "Where were you last night? We were worried-"

"We were worried?" Baljeet scoffed, his voice muffled vaguely by Buford's armpit.

"I meant _they_ were worried. You know what I meant." Baljeet made a noise that sounded faintly like a cross between a splutter and an annoyed scoff. Buford turned back to Phineas. "So? Where were you yesterday?"

Phineas didn't really feel like telling them and a voice in his head said he shouldn't. Another, smaller voice said he should because they were his friends. "I was just looking over some blueprints we didn't use this summer," he lied.

Isabella raised an eyebrow. "Really, Phineas?"

Phineas nervously turned to face her, never making contact with her eyes and scratching his ear fiercely. "Uh, yeah! I was… Isabella." He had difficulty forming her name in his mouth and it came out wrong. Isabella's face remained skeptical and Phineas turned back to the others. "What are you all looking at?" he asked, more curious than angry.

Buford shrugged, "You," he said simply, "You seem very agitated."

Phineas twitched. "Agitated? Why would I be agitated?"

"Phineas! I know what will help!" came a cry.

Phineas turned curiously and found Irving sitting in the seat behind Isabella. "Huh?"

"Are you agitated because of that le-"

"Can it nerd!"

"Hey!"

"Yeah? You never do anything useful."

"That is not true!"

Normally, Phineas would have objected to this treatment of Irving but he just didn't have the heart to do it. He barely had the heart to do anything. He looked out the window. Why was he so confused all of a sudden? It was all the stupid letter… and there was the school. "Hey, here's where we get off," he said as the bus stopped. Buford and Irving stopped arguing and turned to look.

Isabella opened her mouth to ask Phineas something but before she could, before anyone could make a move, Phineas had hopped out of his seat. Ferb made a move to grab and stop him but it was too late. The brilliant inventor teen who had no bad days had disappeared into the squirming crowd of students making their way to the school building. Both Isabella and Ferb exchanged glances and made their way after him.

* * *

><p>Buford bustled along through the crowded halls of the school. Past punks, past geeks, past jocks, all of them milling about in the hall, their uniforms all colored and bright. As he walked, bobbing up and down due to his rolling gait, he shaded his eyes from the harsh, white neon lights above him and stood on his tiptoes to look above the crowd. The almost-endless expanse of black, blond and brown hair, dotted with the occasional red or blue, yielded him no information. More people pushed past him and he leaned down to push one of them back, onto the highly polished white-lino of the floor.<p>

The boy reeled and looked offended, prepared to hit the jerk who had pushed him back until he caught sight of Buford standing over him. He stood up shakily and looked down, shuffling back into the crowd. Buford glared after him and turned back, the cracking blue lockers that lined the wall serving no purpose other than to be a thing to lean on. It was a few seconds before Buford's eyes widened and he turned back to look for Phineas.

But he was gone. Buford opened his mouth and was about to swear loudly when he noticed the hall monitor behind him and slunk off. He looked again and gave up, he wasn't there. He walked along, going with the flow of the crowd, until he reached the battered white-washed doors of the school cafeteria. He pushed them open, some of the coarse white paint flecking off onto his calloused fingers.

He walked in, immediately being greeted by the warm, moist smells of sloppy-joes. He wrinkled his nose, he knew the food of the school smelled a thousand times better than it tasted. Normally, the school cafeteria was filled with goggling spectators, gazing with almost brainless wonder at whatever the school's two resident inventors had assembled that day during whatever class they had had previously. Today, however, the cafeteria was silent, save for the low buzzing hum of chatter.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Josh, the Combined Sports Club organizer. "Hey man, just wanted to let you know that practice has been shifted to Thursday."

Buford nodded distractedly, twisting and turning his neck like a boa constrictor to bring his gaze upon the redhead inventor. Still, Phineas eluded him, and the rest of their peer group, for the umpteenth time. Josh patted him on the shoulder, apparently assuming Buford had heard what he had said, and walked off in the direction of some chatting girls. Buford nodded and moved in the direction of the serving counter, still searching for Phineas.

The lunch-lady glared at him while she plopped some gelatin-like meat onto his bun and shunted him onto the next station. Buford barely noticed her and kept moving along the line until he had his full meal and a dark brown, icy drink to go with it. The seedy man at the cash-register shoved out his hand and gesticulated to Buford, who begrudgingly handed over a note and got a pile of change handed back to him.

He turned and, taking one last look-around for Phineas, made his way toward the table where Baljeet, Irving and Isabella were sitting. As he got closer he could hear Baljeet and Isabella arguing. "It's not the schoolwork!"

"It is!"

"It is not. Just because that's what gets you down…"

"Hey, guys," Buford greeted them, sitting down at the table with his food. Isabella turned in his direction with a raised eyebrow briefly before turning back to Baljeet. Baljeet, looking rather startled, nodded hesitantly at Buford, barely turning his eyes to him, and continued arguing with Isabella. Buford turned expectantly to Irving. Irving stayed silent, furiously tapping away at his computer.

Buford shrugged and bit into his sandwich, trying to swallow the foul-tasting meal before the flavors got to him. He chewed the large mouthful and looked at Baljeet and Isabella flaring at each other. As he chewed the meat and bread - if it could be called that - thoughtful he glanced around the table. There was Baljeet, Isabella, Irving and… Baljeet, Isabella and Irving. Where were the two spearheads of the group. He swallowed painfully and interrupted the two in a most 'Buford-istic' manner. "Hey, guys. Where's Ferb?"

"Look, it's not because of the- huh?" Isabella looked confused and turned to look at Buford.

"Where's Ferb?" Buford repeated.

When Isabella still looked confused Baljeet stepped in. "He said he needed to do something. I think he's-"

"Here," Isabella cut him off and pointed to the cafeteria doors where a green haired boy, smartly dressed in his wrinkle-free clothes, was pushing a very reluctant Phineas towards their table like he would a shopping cart in a grocery store. They all looked with wide eyes and saw Phineas gulp. His journey to the table seemed to take eons and Ferb looked like it was taking all his strength to move him.

As Phineas finally reached the table and raised his hand in a meek gesture. He gulped and looked nervous. Isabella, with wide eyes, leapt up and wrapped her arms around him in a crushing hug, leaning her head on his shoulder. Phineas' eyes quadrupled in size and, as Ferb let go of his hands and sat down next to Buford who had scooted over, patted Isabella on the back awkwardly. "Er… nice to see you too, Isabella."

She giggled and let go of him, sitting back down and patting the free space next to her. Phineas grinned meekly and took the offered seat. He addressed Isabella first, clearly not wanting to make contact with the others yet. "So, Isabella, why did you hug me like that?"

"You don't like hugs?"

"No, I do like hugs. It's just that…"

"You seemed depressed today so I thought you could use a hug."

Phineas' grin increased. "Thanks." He turned to the others, rubbing his neck, "So, er, watcha doin'?" he asked nervously.

Everyone at the table continued to focus their gaze on him as if he was some bizarre oddity and it took awhile for anyone to answer. "Really, Dinner Bell, fightin' about what you are- er, aren't doin'," Buford answered him, a still very surprised look on his face.

Phineas laughed nervously and hastily moved his hand away from his neck. "No, I've been… looking over blueprints."

Baljeet coughed and looked at him. "Phineas, I do believe you have already tried to feed us this story," he commented.

Buford nodded in agreement. "What've ya been doin? What's got ya so… not Phineas?"

"Nothing, nothing. It's…"

"Phineas, it's obviously something," Isabella lowered her gaze at him, looking as if she was trying to x-ray him.

"It's…"

"It's that letter," Ferb said over his paper.

Phineas gulped. "What letter?" Baljeet asked.

Phineas shook his head very very wildly. "It's nothing. I don't want to talk about it," he gulped. He looked as if he was getting agitated now.

"Come on, what is it?" Isabella prompted, her eyes wide and her mouth almost panting for the information.

Phineas stood up twitchily. He looked very unstrung now. "Look!" he shouted, "I don't want to talk about Mum having an affair!" He covered his mouth and sank back to his seat, only now aware of Ferb's hand holding him back.

"Having an affair?" Baljeet asked curiously. Phineas shook his head, tears forming slightly in the corners of his eyes. Ferb wordlessly handed over a old looking piece of paper to Baljeet. Phineas' hands leapt off his mouth and flew to his pockets scrambling to find something in his pockets. When he didn't find it he glared at Ferb, who winked.

Baljeet, after reading the letter, held it up to the light and cleared his throat.

_Linda, my darling,_

_It feels like an age since I last laid my eyes upon your beautiful form and even longer since I've heard your calming voice. I think of you every day and often pray that you stay safe. Out here - I'm not sure I'm allowed to say where exactly I am - I could really use you, like an angel you would be to me as you always have been._

_I'm sure glad I got to see Candace off to her first day of school, she looked like she was having a good time with that other girl, I hope they become friends. I don't think there's much I can say about my time here that I haven't said in other letters but I will say that I am safe and sound, the people of the village are very welcoming and friendly._

_How's Phineas doing? I hope he can get along without me, I really miss seeing his face. I'm not sure how long I'll be here and events seem to be taking a turn for the worse, I'm just glad I can still write. If I don't happen to make it back please take care of Phineas as best you can without me, I'm dead certain he'll be a brilliant boy, even without me. I hope I don't miss out on too many experiences with him._

_I'm afraid this letter will be shorter than most and I'm really starting to wonder if any got through, I'm suspicious they've been screening them because of your lack of response. I pray that this letter does reach you and, even if it doesn't, I send all my love to you._

_Caring and thinking about you,_

_Your Little Miracle Worker._

Baljeet stopped and turned the letter over, not really expecting to find more but curious all the same - it was blank. He put it down and looked at Phineas. "This is why you think your mother is having an affair?" he enquired, a very minute look of incredulity shadowing his face.

Phineas nodded darkly and Isabella looked at the letter. She scrutinized it and looked at Phineas; "But, Phineas, this letter seems really old and…" she looked at the top of the letter again, "look at the date." She handed the letter to him and he grabbed it a bit too eagerly. There, clear as daylight on the corner of the yellowy coarse paper in smudged writing was the date _August 27th, 2000._

Isabella looked at him skeptically, "Phineas, that's almost fourteen years ago… did you even read most of that letter?"

Phineas only realized now that he hadn't and how stupid he had been. _Of course_ his mother wasn't having an affair. He shook his head and Isabella reread the letter quickly. "And, to top that off, this sounds like it was written by your father." Phineas opened his mouth but Isabella cut him off, "Your _biological_ father, not Lawrence."

Phineas nodded and Baljeet turned and opened his mouth, joining in the discussion again. "Phineas, do you even _know_ your father?" he asked.

Phineas was about to scoff and reply "Of course" when he realized what a lie that would have been. He shook his head.

Suddenly, from the corner of the table everyone had forgotten about, Irving piped up. "I know! Here, I'll use the Hackizer and access the city records."

"How did you get that? Those blueprints are locked in our secure server and the only prototype we built went missing!" Phineas exclaimed.

Irving seemed to diminish greatly in size and looked like he was trying to hide behind his computer. "Yeah, about that… I kinda took it - y'know… to test it out." he sheepishly explained. Phineas looked like he was going to go insane before Irving continued. "Here, since I don't know his name I'll access your Mom's… aha!"

He started typing furiously again. "Let's see, let's see… marriages, marriages… ah! Oh, er, ew. Hey, Phineas, did you know that your Mom had surgery on her…"

"Not the kind of stuff we need to know Irving, stay on topic," Isabella suggested.

"Right, right. Ah! Found it. Marriages: hmm… Current: Lawrence Fletcher of Great Britain… oh! Did you know he…"

"Irving!" there was a collective shout at the table.

"Right, right. Current… previous. Previous Marriages: one to a Mr. Frederick Flynn; never actually terminated."

Frederick Flynn, that sounded right to Phineas. "So what have we got on Freder… er, Dad?" Phineas asked.

"Hold on, hold on" Irving insisted, "My connection here is only so fast, you know. It's still accessing. Maybe you guys should build some sort of electronic connectio… here it is: Frederick Flynn. Born: XX XX 196X," he read out loud.

"What?"

"That's all it says. Married to Linda Flynn, then Linda O'Nally. Born: XX XX 196X. Died: Undetermined… there's not much in here… wait, it's got one of the seventeen Danville mayoral stamps on the file."

"Well, what does that mean?" Isabella asked.

Irving nodded his head very slowly, never tearing his eyes from the computer screen. "Well, they can mean many things but this particular one means that the mayor has approved the withholding of some of this file - it's been officially censored."

"Why?"

"Dunno, but… wait! It says here that he had a minor scuffle with the police back in '98. Maybe the police files will have some more information…" he began tapping away again.

Baljeet looked shocked, "Irving! You can't just access police files without authorization!"

"Too late, just did," he said, tapping away again and taking a bit of his lunch. He almost choked on the mouthful and sat up, "Whoa!" he exclaimed.

"What did you find? He wasn't a murderer, was he?"

Irving shook his head, "No, he wasn't a murderer. The details on the case are sketchy. It says there was minor evidence that had a strong likelihood of being planted - it doesn't even say what it was. Listen to this: _All records of case file and crime are to be disposed of immediately…_ blah blah blah, just legal stuff. But that's not the freaky part. This case has been Federally Dropped. That means that the investigation was forcibly stopped. Only people up real high have the power to do that."

Phineas was about to ask for more when the bell rang. Irving shut his laptop and sprung up out of his chair. He handed the letter back to Phineas - nobody could remember him getting it - and ran out of the hall. "I'll see what I can find in the next few days!" he called behind him. Phineas dropped his hand and didn't even bother shouting back. It was going to be a long few days.

* * *

><p><strong>AN - Yes! Finally finished it! Sorry it took so long but I've been really loaded down this week. School's coming to a close and, consequentially, the work's increasing (the next chapter might be a little while in coming). Sorry about that.**

**Hope this makes up for it but I still feel it's rushed. Oh well, you'll be the judge of that. Enjoy!**

**Characters (excluding Frederick): Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh**

**Story: Me**


	4. He Was A… What Now?

**Chapter 3: He Was a… What Now?**

The next three days of school passed at a slug's pace for Phineas. Every moment he was expecting to see Irving bursting through the cafeteria doors holding a glowing computer and shouting out "Phineas, Phineas!" This had been the seed for many annoying daydreams for Phineas all through his classes and he had trouble blocking them out, even in his E4 Technology class - the most advanced class in the school and, by far, his favorite.

He was so sick with nervousness that he barely ate anything and got behind on most of his school work. It was just too hard to focus while he had visions of Irving sitting at a computer in some oddly constructed underground bunker reading about his dad. Though Ferb wasn't nearly as nervous as Phineas, not by a long shot, he was getting a bit worried by his brother's behavior. So much so, in fact, that he began to evaluate what Phineas' father could possibly be.

Ferb was never one to be worried. Not in stressful situations, not, in fact, in _any_ situation. But he was worried now. He was worried, quite really and quite deeply, for his brother. It was Phineas' _biological father _they were talking about, the one he knew nothing about, the one whom all his optimism and engineering prowess came from.

He could be, quite literally, _anything,_ nobody had seen him for fourteen years. He could be a murderer, a druggy, a warlord. Of course he could be something less… illicit, like a millionaire. But, based on the fact that he was _missing_, as good as vanished off the face of the planet, Ferb didn't think these wonderful and much more inviting alternatives were likely. Besides, why would he, consciously, just leave his wife and family behind for no reason?

Ferb knew there was someone who knew the truth, but that person, he thought, wouldn't talk about the subject easily. His step-mother was just too kind hearted and frail to talk about kidnappings, disappearances and tragedy. She was most certainly not a lady with nerves of steel. Sure, she was when she wanted to be, but those were for less horrifying subjects. What would she say if Ferb asked? He shuddered a spine-rattling shudder at the thought.

Ferb told himself he was worrying over nothing. Phineas was, well… Phineas. Optimistic, caring, kind and always gentle. He would never do anything horrible to anybody, so Ferb reasoned that his father must, to a certain extent, be the same. And yet there were times when Phineas changed drastically. He had sides to his personality that were quite different from his usual. Though it was about as hard to flip Phineas as it was to flip a plutonium coin on a neutron star, when it was flipped boy, did it flip.

Based on his closer-than-normal brotherly knowledge of Phineas' innermost workings, Ferb had a constant, but incredibly subtle, fear that Phineas flip-side personality would come in to play if he got information about his father. He was afraid that this alter-Phineas would take advantage of Phineas'… less desirable traits and pervert some of his better ones. His obliviousness, his determination, his stubbornness; these might all come in to play, these might all drive Phineas to find his father.

But was that so bad? Ferb told himself it wasn't, Phineas had every right to seek his father. And yet Ferb had a portending feeling that, if Phineas did go, he would never return. Ferb could never let that happen. Phineas was his brother and it was his sworn duty for eternity that they should be united. But Ferb was only one man. Not even that, a boy. And what could a boy do to stop Phineas' quest? Nothing.

That wasn't at all how Ferb usually thought. Anything was possible, all the time, anywhere. Hadn't he and Phineas proved that together? He and Phineas. He and Phineas could do _anything_. Ferb wasn't sure he could do without Phineas by his side, he had never had to before. But this time it might be different. If Phineas went to search for his father than Ferb alone would be left to stop him. Ferb couldn't do that. He could go with Phineas… but he couldn't. He had friends, he had his family, he had his girlfriend. Him going with Phineas would be selfish on both their parts.

Ferb shook his head, he should stop worrying. Why was he worrying? He had never worried before. But, Ferb realized, he had never been without his brother before. But Phineas hadn't done anything except sit at his desk yet. Irving wasn't there and hopefully, when he did _eventually_ get there, he wouldn't bring any alarming information. Right then, Ferb could only pray that Phineas would make the right choice and stay safe, stay with his brother.

Ferb raised his cracking gaze from the book he hadn't really been reading and looked across the old lunch table to where Phineas, for the first time in days, he was intently fiddling with a small circuit board on the back of a glass pad while Isabella sat next to him, handing him tools and parts while swooning, and Baljeet sat next to Ferb calling out formulae to Phineas from his book on advanced quantum physics.

Ferb's corner lip twitched up in the slightest and he hid it behind his book. This, he decided, was how it should always be. Their closely knit group of friends _together._ Sure, there were some minor improvements to make, Phineas getting together with Isabella, Baljeet getting a girlfriend, Buford becoming less… Buford-y and the inventions becoming bigger. Other than that, it was great the way it was.

Nothing could ever stay great though. It was the same thought Ferb had had as a nine-year-old while he and the even-more-energetic Phineas constructed backyard roller-coasters and full-stage concerts. Sooner or later, they would all break up. Baljeet would study at an advanced foreign university. Ferb would return to Britain for his studies and Phineas would take up an apprenticeship with a Danville-based engineering board while he home studied, Isabella, Ferb had no doubt, living with him while he paid for her university fees. But that was not for _years_, they were fourteen darn it. For now, Ferb reflected, everything was right with the world.

"Phineas! Phineas!" Ferb was the first to hear the call from across the lunchroom. He silently prayed for it not to be Irving, a futile attempt, he was completely certain. "Phineas!" Ferb could practically see Phineas' ears perk up, much in the same manner as a rabbit, and watch Isabella's panther-like gaze target the source of the noise in a matter of seconds.

Ferb watched as the slightly-unfit but not overweight hacker and part-time journalist made his way through the pulsating swaying crowds of people filling the cafeteria and finally collapsed at their table, a glowing computer, just as Ferb had predicted, clutched in his hand. Irving's head rested on the table for a few minutes more, as he gasped and flopped on it like a diseased fish out of water, while he regained his composure and finally lifted it up.

Irving blinked, panting, and managed a smile at every wide-eyed member of the group, "H-hey guys, whatcha do while I was gone?" he asked as cockily as he could.

Isabella huffed "Uh, hello-" but was cut off by Phineas.

"Irving! What have you got? Is he a murderer? A terrorist? A-"

"I don't know, Phineas," he stated simply, resting his thin and freckled forearms on the laptop's greasy keyboard, broken keys and buttons depressing with his pressure.

Phineas looked aghast, as if he had been done a grievous wrong of the most horrifying and inhumane kind. "What do you mean 'you don't know'?" he almost screamed, instantly losing his cool and sweeping the forgotten and unfinished invention off the desk in his excitement with all the care an angry tiger had when dealing with fresh, running prey.

Isabella, Baljeet and Buford all looked severely alarmed, their eyes magnifying to the size of over-inflated beach-balls as they struggled to comprehend what they were seeing; comparing it to the Phineas they had known for thirteen years. Even Ferb looked mildly alarmed but he did an extremely good job of hiding it, only Buford noticing the slight widening of his eyes in his peripheral vision - a very, very exotic phenomenon when dealing with the charming, but otherwise cosmetically emotionless, English boy.

Irving was the only one at the table who managed to stay calm and unalarmed by Phineas' behavior. He sat idly by his computer absorbing the on-flowing torrent of shock and excitement in much the same manner as a mountain did a sea-storm with a serene and unconcerned expression resting peacefully on his face, curling up like a warmly comforted cat. Finally, Phineas' rant petered out, slowing to an infrequent and slightly-insane drip. "You've been gone for three days and you haven't got anything. What were you doing?" he asked, at long last managing to control his curiosity.

Irving smiled a bit with the air of someone who knew a lot more and was in complete control of the situation, in the same way as a puppet-master. Wordlessly, he held up what looked like a thin, long flash-drive with the neatly printed words "Hackizer Prototype 1.1, Flynn-Fletcher Engineering Conglomerate" running along the side in brushed-silver letters. Leading from the precise, pointed end of the pen was an attenuated clean cord leading to his battered black computer. "I" he said, tapping a few keys blindly on the keyboard and bringing up a program in-leu of a web-browser but covered in more code than anyone but him was used to, "have been hacking into the NSA for the past three days," he stated smugly.

"You what?" Isabella, Phineas and Baljeet collectively yelled, the same expression of shock and fear tearing onto their faces.

Irving only smiled but continued in a serious manner. "It wasn't easy, without your Hackizer it would have taken me… roughly five thousand, six hundred and forty-seven years to hack it, by then I either would have been spiked or traced - I'm on shaky ground, as it is."

The looks of horror simply persisted at these words, quite literally being fueled of them. Irving didn't seem to notice, however, and continued unabated. "I only just managed to get a working connection, as a matter of fact, and I'm running the search for "Frederick Flynn" now. I've found several articles with the name in them, he seems to be tied to an Agent CUTLAS."

"Did you say "_Agent_ CUTLAS"?" Baljeet asked.

Irving nodded and added to the confirmation with "That I did." Baljeet slumped back into his lunch table seat, contemplatively munching his sandwich, at these words and Phineas leaned forward, closer to Irving who had turned back intently to his computer. Phineas looked from the computer backside and into Ferb's eyes, exchanging a knowing, almost telepathic, glance. Ferb nodded understandingly and Phineas looked to Isabella for reassurance. Isabella squeezed his hand and stared, smiling, into his eyes briefly.

Irving jerked up, poker-rod straight, in his seat with wide eyes and slowly turned his computer around to face its glowing screen towards Phineas and Isabella, Ferb leaned forward in his seat to try and get a glance too. On the flimsy, plastic computer's glowing pixilated screen was a scantily pulled up text file covered in official stamps. Across the top, in an official, no-nonsense font, was the attention grabbing title of "Frederick Flynn, AKA Agent CUTLAS."

"Oh lord," Ferb breathed as he caught sight of the screen and its contents. This was not good, not good at all. It was his, almost, worst fears confirmed. Phineas' father, whom he would most likely go searching for, was an agent for the United States government, and a missing one at that. Ferb had watched enough spy movies, James Bond and the like from his collection in Britain, to know that missing government agents never turned up in good places. He could only pray that Phineas would give him up for dead and not follow his father into some untamed, death-trap, wilderness.

Irving nodded silently and both Buford and Baljeet crowded round the screen as well. They had all read it, Phineas' dad was a _spy_, or something of the sort. Irving turned the computer back to himself and began shooting off sentences to the group, hoping some would have meaning. "Let's see, let's see," he muttered, scanning his eyes over the file while Ferb breathed down his neck, hoarse and anxious.

"Ok, it says here that he was… crap." Irving grimaced.

"What?" Phineas asked, puzzled and anxious to the point of sweating himself to death.

Irving muttered something incomprehensible before he read aloud to the group again. "They inserted him into southern Pakistan to, quote un-quote, "track the progress of possibly compromised multi-stage nuclear weapons"" he read, his face going so pale he looked beyond death.

"Well what does that mean?" Buford asked gruffly, speaking for the first time since lunch had started; it felt like days, if not months, ago that Phineas had been tinkering with Isabella.

Irving took a long, heavily pregnant pause to answer but did so none-the-less, in a voice so different and chilled from his usual that it sent a rattling shiver up Ferb's spine. "It means, effectively, that they sent him to infiltrate a terrorist, or otherwise, group that have stolen nuclear weapons, h-bombs, specifically."

Phineas' veins turned to ice at the words. His father had been sent to look for _atomic weapons_? And he was _missing_. What was the world coming to? Why had they done that? How had he even entered into the service of the government? It just didn't make sense. Phineas had always thought of his father as… what? Fun-loving, care-free, always smiling… an older, wiser and less-hyperactive version of himself. Instead, he was looking for weapons that could destroy entire cities. That couldn't possibly be him, it couldn't. But it was, and Phineas knew it was.

"Ok, just because I'm the only _not-nerd _in this group, can someone tell me what an h-bomb, is?" Buford asked grumpily.

"To put it simply, you know about Hiroshima, right?"

Buford snorted, "Of course I don't, do you expect me to _read_?" he spat the word as if the act of doing so was a horrifying sin.

Irving sighed exasperatedly and rubbed his forehead, "Basically, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima destroyed the entire city. H-bombs are, on average, around thirty-four times more powerful, usually more. _One _could easily destroy the entire Danvillian area, plus quite a few more. This file says that _several_ were stolen."

Buford's usual ruddy red complexion turned a ghostly pale corpse-esque white and his eyes became bloodshot from staring. Irving nodded. Everyone around the table was now fueling a healthy cold-sweat and Phineas looked the worse out of all of them. His eyes had developed deep, dark bags underneath and his hair seemed to have darkened and greased with oil, becoming sleazily matted.

He breathed hoarsely and slightly crazily, sitting with his chin resting on his sweaty palms. Irving looked down at the computer once more and started typing furiously on it. Irving relaxed his shoulders slightly a minute later and turned the screen around to face the rest of the group again. This time, on the screen, was an old-looking faded color picture of the man dated to 1992.

The resemblance he had to Phineas was uncannily creepy. He was taller, certainly, but had the air of a man, even in the photo, should have been a lot taller than he already was. Upon his nose, which was slightly different to Phineas', Isabella noted, sat a pair of thin, shiny black wire glasses that had collected quite a few scratches. From his head sprouted locks of fiery, but faded, red hair and in his deep blue eyes could be seen a much more determined spark than what they were used to seeing in Phineas.

"_That_ is your dad?" Baljeet asked incredulously, is mouth open.

Phineas didn't respond to this and Isabella giggled, "Wow, Phineas, I can see where you get your good looks from," she grinned, nudging his shoulder playfully as his face turned the slightest shade of red. Isabella's laughter broke the ice that had formed and Baljeet and Irving cracked smiles as Isabella dissolved into a giggling fit. Ferb's lips twitched upward and Buford grinned slightly. Even Phineas smiled a bit, though his eyes never lost their serious glint.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess it is," he responded finally, his x-raying gaze never leaving the screen of the computer to look at Baljeet's smiling face. Irving, for the umpteenth time, pulled the computer back around to face him and began typing on it again, his black, thickly rimmed glasses reflecting the blueish light from the computer screen in a rather disconcerting manner.

"Sorry, guys, the connection's limited so we have to go fast before they trace me," he said, sounding rather worried, and began typing again. "Ok, it says he was born… dammit!" Irving swore and thumped the desk.

"What is it?"

"This file doesn't have that information either. It doesn't say where he was born or when. It just says that he immigrated to the U.S. in 1985, joined up with the CIA less than a day later. He's had very little operational history until recently. One 'Operation Forest Passage' in '93 - that lasted a month and then another one soon after, 'Operation Marching Camp,' in '95. Married to Linda O'Nally in '92 - your sister was born two years later. And then one last operation in 2000, "Operation Hot Spot IV."

Phineas sat stunned for a minute. _Operations_? The word sounded so alien to him. Real, military operations. And his dad was a part of them. It didn't make sense. He had been born the year his dad had deployed on his last mission. His mind went blank and numb, almost stabbing pains that weren't real coursing through every now and again. His dad was an _agent_ that went on _operations_ and he was _missing._

"I have to go find him" he said firmly, standing up. This was what Ferb had been dreading. Phineas couldn't go, he had too much to lose.

"Phineas…" Ferb started quietly and calmly.

"Phineas! Wait! Listen to this." They all turned back to Irving and Phineas glanced at him to continue. Irving read out loud. "It says here that the operation was going well for almost a year until Freder… your dad reported that six members of his eight-man team had been killed. His last reported company was an SAS Sergeant and an Israeli soldier… Corporal Chayyim Shapiro."

Isabella, who had been contentedly eating her sandwich and occasionally tuning in to the conversation, froze at these words. Swallowing quickly, she turned to Irving. "What did you say?" she asked urgently. Irving, unperturbed, read off the name again and Isabella's blood ran cold. "Chayyim Shapiro" she repeated, her eyes glazing over with fear. Irving looked curious, what was so special about an Israeli corporal they had never heard of?

Suddenly, it dawned on him. "Isabella, he… he's not your dad, is he?" he asked, going paper pad pale.

Isabella didn't say anything for a few seconds, she was listening to her cold, beating heart, and then she responded in a voice so broken and higher-pitched than normal that it made everyone at the table feel cold and sick. "I… I don't know. I never knew my dad."

Irving paused a second and started typing again, as best he could while the computer was still turned around. "What are you doing?" Baljeet asked as the hacker struggled to type upside down and brought up several more files and progress bars.

"Here, Corporal Chayyim Shapiro. Wow, this is very high profile. Accessing this is not going to be good. Let's see, marriage… marriage. Married to… Vivian Garcia, now Garcia-Shapiro, 1995. Ok, that's good, paternal records… paternal records… paternal records! Ok, father of one Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, 2000. Ok I'll see…" Irving leapt back as the computer started fizzling and humming, spewing smoke. "They spiked me!" he screamed, pulling his hair as he watched the computer destroy itself, "They spiked me! **Me**!**"**

"Does not that mean they cannot trace you though?" Baljeet asked.

Irving quivered. "They spiked me!" he wailed in despair.

"I'm going to find my dad" Phineas stated again. Ferb had been fearing this. Not again. Phineas couldn't go. He would die or be lost forever. Ferb loved him too much, everyone loved him too much, to see him go and never come back. Yes, it was selfish. But it was Phineas, the tinkerer of Danville. He couldn't just sacrifice himself on an utterly suicidal mission to find his father.

"I'm going too" Isabella stated firmly, the playfulness and the smiles in her face entirely gone. She stood up resolutely next to Phineas and his face hardened. Phineas looked around at all of them, "Ok, guys. We need to make a device that will transport us straight to our dads. We probably need to also built some sort of protective clothing for whatever we may encounter. Ok?"

Everyone at the table sat silent, looking at Phineas crazily. Why was he doing this? He had so much to lose! Why couldn't he just stay in Danville and enjoy it here, accepting the fact that his dad was probably dead? To everyone's surprise, Buford was the first to speak up. "Dinner Bell…" he started in a consoling tone, slowly reaching out his hand to nervously steady Phineas on the shoulder. Isabella pushed his hand away and placed hers there instead. Buford looked quite apprehensive, as if anticipating the worst.

"Ya shouldn't go… you've got too much to lose" he continued, looking straight into Phineas' eyes.

Phineas glared at him. "Who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn't do? This is my dad, I have to," he burst out.

Buford shook his head slowly. "Ya don't 'ave to," he paused, then continued, "When I was small, when I was a wimp, my granddad used to tell me stories about Korea and 'Nam. People dying, torture. They were horrible. And I've heard stories about what goes on in the Middle East. Ya can't go there."

Phineas turned away, ignoring him. "Phineas, don't go. You're the tinkerer of Danville. You can't… please?" Irving begged.

Isabella rounded on him. "Exactly!" she pointed, nostrils flaring slightly, "Phineas is the tinkerer of Danville, he can go anywhere he wants! And I'm going with him." She wound herself closer to Phineas just as Ferb imagined a snake would do.

"Ferb…" Baljeet turned to look at him, egging him on with his rich chocolate eyes. "You are his brother…"

Phineas turned to look at Ferb as well. Ferb feet hot, as if he been focused on by a microwave stage light. With everyone looking at him, he felt very conscious of himself. He pushed those thoughts aside and straightened his vest, he knew that he alway looked good, at least, judging by people's constant compliments. He knew that he was against Phineas going, but Phineas was his brother. Ferb turned to look him in the eye and reached out, placing a cool hand on Phineas' clenched fist, lowering it to his side.

Phineas sighed. "I know, Ferb. But… he's my dad, I've got to go." Ferb shook his head the minutest of increments and blinked. Phineas flared up. "It's ok for you! You've got a dad! And a mother!"

Sometimes, actions didn't cut it. "So do you."

Phineas' face contorted slightly, as if he was struggling with an immense pain. "It's not the same for you, Ferb."

"I lost my mother."

"You don't understand! You know who your dad is! You've got a dad! Here I am, and I've got a chance to know the truth! I _need_ to know the truth!"

"He's your dad too."

"No, he's not! My dad is out there!" he pointed wildly, "And you're stopping me from finding him! Get out of the way!"

It was only then, as Phineas' brief, and only, flash of anger in fourteen years subsided, that he Phineas realized what he had said. He raised a hand to his mouth. He wished dearly that he could take it back. He didn't mean what he'd said like that. Ferb's gaze said it all. "So, we're not brothers anymore?" It was a rhetorical question that floated in the air long after Ferb had quickly disappeared from school before anyone noticed.

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><p><strong>AN - ****Sorry I took so long to finish it, those of you who are reading the story. As such, I must offer up some excuse to your scrutinizing opinions. It was the last week of school for me and I was bogged down in tests. Hopefully this makes up for it. Chapter 5 should be up sometime in the next week.**

**Yeah, I'm not sure if Phineas went a bit OOC here but, from what I've heard of the movie, it shouldn't be too out of character. Besides, what do you think he would do in that situation?**

**As always, constructive criticism and grammar checks are always welcome and encouraged.**

**Characters (Excluding CUTLAS or Frederick): Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh**

**Story (And CUTLAS or Frederick): Me!**

***UPDATE* Actually, this was updated about half a week ago. I only just realized how to mark it as updated. Enjoy. :)**


	5. Ferb… I Have To

**Chapter 4: Ferb, I Have To**

Phineas swung his cold metal hammer at the nail with a ferocious whack, a satisfying series of reverberations ringing through the sheet of metal. He lifted the hammer again above his head, savoring the feeling of the smooth, cool wood in his hand, and whacked at the nail again, yet more vibrations pulsating through the metal as the quite deformed nail was beaten through it.

Phineas raised the hammer again and was about to take his terrible vengeance on the nail for a third time when he felt a warm hand on his wrist, holding him back. His eyes softened to the consistency of baby kitten fur and he looked at Isabella, the anger in his eyes replaced by a calm sadness. He let his strength in the hammer wane and it sunk to his lap as he himself sank cross-legged to the ground. "Phineas, you've got to stop whacking it that hard, you're gonna break the machine before we even build it."

Phineas nodded numbly and stared at his hammer. And, as Isabella let go of his wrist, Phineas felt a pang in his heart and had the sudden desire to grab her wrist in return. He ignored it and Isabella turned back to her own work, wiring the machine. Phineas, with great effort, tore his gaze away from Isabella, stopping himself from grabbing her hand, and looked back at the hammer.

He remembered when he had first used it. He had been four at the time, dressed in smart, if somewhat grubby, blue overalls with a large pocket in the front for, his mother had told him, tools. He sat in his sister's room, one of her dolls clutched in his chubby hand. In front of him, bent over and buried in a pile of clothes, was his ten-year old sister, Candace.

Phineas giggled as she rummaged in the pile, emerging every so often with a different outfit on, each too big for her. Phineas laughed harder and harder every time he saw Candace goofily wearing her mother's clothes and making funny faces at him. Candace could always make the best funny faces. Steadily, as Candace dug deeper into the pile so messily excavated from the closet, the then white room grew more and more plastered with clothes, covering up the vibrant posters of an un-anatomically correct yet completely cheerful-looking yellow duck.

As Candace threw herself into the pile yet again, discarding her previous costume at an almost inhuman rate, Phineas heard a ringing call from downstairs. Candace hadn't noticed as he heard again "Phineas! Candace!" Phineas carefully put the doll down, bent over, grabbing a leg of the chair as he did so, and lowered himself down the wizened frame of the painfully old seat, a squeak, or groan, emanating from deep within the wooden beams.

As the third call drifted up the stairs Candace's head popped out of the pile, Phineas almost thought he heard a cartoon-like pop, but Linda had always told him he had a hyperactive imagination, and she looked around. Phineas bubbly giggled and Candace laughed along with him him, taking her mother's long button-up shirt off as she did so.

As the forth call came Candace grabbed Phineas' hand and started leading him down the stairs, Phineas following his big sister quite willingly. Just as they got down the stairs they found Linda standing in the middle of the living room, her raised hand to her mouth as she started to shout for them again. She stopped when she caught sight of the two and smiled. "I thought I was going to have to come up there, what were you two doing?"

Phineas smiled innocently and plopped himself on the ground in front of her. Candace grinned sheepishly at her mother and then pointed behind her. "Who's that?" she asked. Phineas' eyes widened in curiosity as he too leaned to the side in an effort to try and see what everyone else was looking at. As he strained, Linda moved aside.

Behind her stood a man of around the same age, as best Phineas could tell. His eyes were bright, but stood veiled behind thin walls of highly polished glass, each set in a thick, black, rectangular frame. He stood a couple of inches taller than his mother yet he had an air of peacefulness about him, as if he had quite an enlightenment on the world. He wore long black denim pants with cleanly polished leather loafers and wore a white polo tee-shirt with purple trims.

He leaned down to eye level in front of Candace and she stared at him uncertainly. "Hello, Candace. I'm Lawrence." She eyed him suspiciously and Lawrence smiled warmly. Lawrence turned away from the still frowning Candace and moved in front of Phineas, holding out his hand. "Hello, Phineas. I'm Lawrence." Phineas grabbed Lawrence's outstretched hand with both of his and enthusiastically shook it.

"Lawrence," he repeated. Lawrence nodded and laughed.

Linda moved forward to also lean down in front of Phineas, "Lawrence and Ferb will be coming to live with us. Lawrence is your dad."

Phineas' eyes glazed over with curiosity and he stared at Linda as she straightened herself back up to her full height. "Mommy, who's Ferb?" he asked.

Linda smiled and turned around, picking up another small boy and planting him in front of Phineas. The boy was tall for his age and stood another three and a half inches off the ground from Phineas. In his small hand was clutched a small, papery British flag on a wooden stick. He was wearing a similar pair of overalls to Phineas though they were purple and he wore a clean beige shirt underneath. Like his father, he had a slightly larger than normal nose that was also a bit squarish. To top it off was a mop of neatly combed, though it still looked messy, lime green hair.

The boy grinned a bit in an all-too-British manner and waved his flag. Phineas smiled and looked at his mother. "Does that mean Ferb's my brother?" he asked innocently. Linda nodded and before she could even answer Phineas had pulled Ferb and Candace into a warm embrace. Candace, though initially startled, settled into the embrace and smiled, they were family.

Phineas broke away from the embrace first and turned to his mother, "Mommy, can I show Ferb the garage?" Linda looked surprised for a second before she nodded. Phineas flashed her his customary winning smile and grabbed Ferb's arm, pulling him along before the English boy could object. For the first time since Ferb had arrived at the house from the airport via cab, which he now learned were called 'taxis', he got a good look at the house.

It was old, though freshly repainted. It was nicely furnished with exotic pieces of antique furniture, most, Ferb would have supposed, of eastern European style. Around the house were various traditionally painted paintings depicting, mostly, American settlers in the great plains; traditional English, Scottish and Irish vistas; wintery scenes of glittering snow and arctic forests and paintings of, quite obviously, eastern Europe. He looked toward where Phineas was pulling him and saw a dark opening adjacent to the kitchen.

Phineas dragged him inside and, with what seemed to Ferb to be a monumental effort, flicked the light on. The garage was dirty, dusty and messy yet Ferb loved it immediately. It was filled with boxes of metal scrap parts surrounding a single, aging red station-wagon. In the corner was carefully tucked a pink confetti-laden bike and next to it sat a toolbox.

Ferb looked around in wonder and Phineas spread his arms wide. "This is my favorite room in the house!" he presented, widening his arms as best he could, as if trying to magnify and project what he felt onto Ferb. When Ferb didn't respond and continued staring in awe Phineas gave him a sidelong glance and popped the question. "You don't talk much, do you?"

Ferb turned to look him in the eye and Phineas understood. "Oh, I get it. That's okay, I can speak for both of us."

Ferb silently agreed and went back to admiring the room. His gaze roamed until it caught on something in the corner. Ferb shuffled over to it and reached out his hand. "What's this?" he asked, holding out the old red toolbox for Phineas to see. Phineas looked curiously at it.

"That's a toolbox," he stated. Ferb nodded and Phineas reached for it, his soft, young skin grazing gently on the chipping rough red wood as his hand brushed it. He grabbed the handle that was sticking out of the box and pulled on it. Out the smooth black handle came, followed swiftly by a metal head. Phineas held it in his hand and let it rest there, feeling the perfect balance it achieved.

"Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today." Ferb turned to sit next to him, a screwdriver from the box clutched tightly in one hand and a power drill clasped in his other. He smiled slightly at his new step-brother and emphasized for him to continue. Phineas grinned, they were going to be best brothers forever.

Phineas' nose dripped with a tear that wound its way down his face and dropped into the grass with a minuscule splash. He reached one energy-drained hand up from the hammer and wiped his eyes, forgetting that he wasn't the only person in the world. He knelt there, in the grass, under the scorching summer sun, next to the side of his house, not even noticing his four-legged mindless pet slipping in a secret compartment. He sat and wept, not freely and openly, but reclusively.

As he sat in the grass, not even feeling the course blades pricking him through his rugged blue cargo shorts, he tried his best to withhold the salty stream of sadness that was threatening to erupt from his eyes. His mind was blank. He wasn't thinking of Ferb. He didn't register the pounding and sizzling behind him in the backyard. He wasn't thinking of how he had lost his brother. He was just sad, though he couldn't remember why.

"Phineas, come here," he heard distantly. He shuffled around and, before he could even respond, telling whoever it was that he wanted to be left alone, to think, he was enveloped in a hug from Isabella. He looked up at the sky, as he so often had before, and felt his spirits soar as once they had. As he stared, he gingerly curled his arms around Isabella and hugged her back, sucking up his tears and sniffing slightly.

Isabella pulled away and crossed her legs in front of Phineas as he plopped on the ground. She stared at him intently, searching his face. Her crush lowered his gaze to the ground and didn't look at her. Gently, she raised her hands to his soft cheeks, which, she now noticed, were discreetly covered in small hairs, and lifted his face to hers. "Phineas, this isn't you at all. This is not the Phineas Flynn I've lo… known" she corrected herself hastily, "For thirteen years. There's nothing productive coming out of this. I've done all the work so far… which is a very odd change - thank goodness it's you I've been hanging around with. This is killing you… and it's killing him. Just go make up." She stuck her finger in the direction of the creamy yellow house and Phineas slouched up.

* * *

><p>Ferb lay forlornly on his bed, staring at the faded, eggshell blue ceiling, much to the disapproval of his parents. He lay, one hand curled, like a rather stressed cat, in the white linen sheets of his compact bed and the other clenched into a fist on his chest, as his slightly mismatched green-brown eye and blue-brown eye unfocused and refocused on the ceiling.<p>

He shifted his gaze from the ceiling to the door and sighed. It was odd for Ferb to sigh. Truthfully, it was odd for any Fletcher to sigh. Yes, though most of them weren't as mute as Ferb (they certainly weren't, much to Ferb's annoyance, at Fletcher family functions) seeing them sigh was about as rare as watching asteroids make extinct thousands of species. Which, Ferb reminded himself, was, geologically speaking, not very rare at all.

He wasn't angry, Ferb had never been angry since his mother had disappeared, and he wrote those off as childish temper-tantrums. He was frustrated and confused. He didn't know what to do, something so rare that it had never happened before and something so unexpected that it was escalating Ferb's confusion to almost-unbearable levels. It was almost as if Ferb's head was filled with a furiously buzzing billowing grey fog, smothering and thick, preventing him from thinking.

He had never been the creative one. Since he was born all the attention from his parent's and grandparents had been focused on the creative people in the family, in this case, one of Ferb's cousins. For centuries, it could be traced back even to the renaissance, the _very_ English, with some Scottish and Irish uncles and cousins here and there, Fletcher family had valued and exulted the creative members of their clan. But Ferb wasn't one of them, at least, not in the areas that mattered to his family. He was good at creatively solving problems.

Phineas was the creative one. Together, he and Ferb were an unstoppable team. But now Ferb was fighting a battle without, worse still, _against _his brother and he didn't know what to do. He knew Phineas couldn't go. But he was going to anyway. Ferb had known Phineas long enough to realize that, in this battle, Phineas' stubbornness would prevail and he would lose a bitter defeat, one not affecting him, but his brother.

How was he going to convince Phineas not to go? Ferb's hand hit the cold wooden floor and he closed his eyes, savoring the feeling. It was on this floor, ten years ago, that he had first set his bag from England down and realized, this was home. He heard a knock on the door and opened his eyes, his gaze locking onto the knob as if trying to see through the door.

He didn't need to though, he knew who was on the other side, and why. His parents had given up trying to get him out of his room hours ago and Ferb knew that Isabella was smart enough not to get involved in this clash, if that was indeed what he intended it to be. Ferb then became aware that he was going about it the wrong way and decided that he should be approaching this encounter with a positive attitude, make himself believe that the outcome would be good. _Like Phineas would_, Ferb thought.

Without a second knock, Phineas opened the door and entered the room, feeling that it had grayed somewhat since he had left it bright and happy that morning. Choosing not to break the silence, Phineas made his way over to his bed and, not even glancing at Ferb, flopped into it. Ferb stayed silent and rolled onto his back again, steeling a glimpse of Phineas, large pointy nose sticking into the bed.

They sat like this for a few minutes, neither one saying anything and both formulating a plan on how to approach the other. Finally, after what seemed like hours of suffocating silence, Ferb broke the silence, something neither of them had expected at all. "Phineas…?" he said, his deep British voice cleanly slicing the silence up and casting it aside.

Immediately, Phineas' shot up in his bed with a jolt, remembering that this was only the second time since he had known him that Ferb had said his name. He choked on a wad of saliva that he didn't know had collected in his throat and he felt some tears sting his eyes. He wiped them away, as if trying to wipe away the mistakes he had made and his sadness. How could he have been so stupid? Throwing away a friendship, nay, a brotherhood, a strong as his and Ferb's was damn near, if not, the stupidest thing he had ever done.

"Phineas…? I'm sorry, I know you deserve to find your father and…" but Phineas cut him off.

"No Ferb, I'm sorry. I should never have gotten so angry. It's just… may Dad, you know? But I have no excuse. I know what you said about us not being brothers but… can we still be brothers?" Ferb nodded and Phineas gave him a teary, yet strong, smile. He lay back in his bed and smiled at the ceiling, and a thought occurred to him. "Ferb, I guess this is goodbye. Isabella's probably finished by now and…" he looked over to see Ferb staring at him.

"No, Ferb, I'm still going." Ferb's eyes fell a little and Phineas hopped off the bed. "Are you sure you won't come with us?" he asked a little hopefully, always feeling better with the silent Brit at his side. Ferb shook his head and Phineas' gaze hardened. "Fine," he said coldly, walking to the door and out of it, no 'Goodbye, Ferb' escaping his lips as he did so.

Ferb sighed and rolled back onto his back. He thought they had just made up. Fine, Ferb was okay with Phineas leaving it this way. Leaving to who knows where without saying a goodbye to even his brother. Phineas could do whatever the bloody hell he wanted. Ferb couldn't make his decisions for him and he wasn't going to. If Phineas was going to throw his life away on a wild goose chase than that was fine by Ferb.

He rolled onto his side and found Perry sitting next to his bed, wall-eyed stare directed, as best the monotreme could, at Ferb. Ferb smiled slightly, the words _Oh, there you are Perry_ crossing his mind as he reached down and picked up the platypus. Ferb pulled him into a warm embrace and let the tears that had been threatening to flow the whole day seep into the clean, yet petrol-smelling fur, of his pet.

After holding him for a minute Ferb pulled him away to look at him and stroked his fur. Perry chattered and Ferb scratched his chin, feeling as he did so the locket that Perry wore around his neck. Ferb pulled it into view from its hiding place nestled in Perry's fur and opened it, staring at the pictures of himself, Perry and Phineas embedded in its golden case. Ferb inhaled his breath sharply, he _wasn't_ okay with Phineas leaving without a goodbye. He wasn't okay with Phineas throwing his life away.

Determination in his eyes, Ferb grabbed the box he kept under his bed and ran down the stairs, Perry tucked under his arm with a very perplexed expression on his face, praying that Phineas would not have yet left.

* * *

><p>Phineas slid the sliding door shut behind him with a little more force than usual and made his way into the backyard where Isabella, though a bit sweaty, stood beaming next to a shining plastic and metal hoop, just to go along with the clichés. She smiled at him but her smile faltered slightly when she saw the look on his face. Her look of satisfaction and happiness turned to one of concern and she put a gentle hand on his shoulder, "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.<p>

Phineas shook his head and instead turned his face to the machine. "Is it ready?" he asked, his voice sounding curious but his face saying otherwise.

Isabella beamed and thrust out her chest slightly, "Yep," she glowed, "It just needs to be plugged in. Could you do that Phineas? I'll be on this end."

Phineas nodded half-heartedly, walking through the rain that had begun to pour to the garage, following the cable from the machine. As he reached the end he flicked the large switched hooked up to many of the mains power units and heard Isabella shout "It's on, are you ready to go, Phineas?" her voice sounding peppy with an undertone of concern so faint that only Ferb would have been able to detect it.

Phineas shouted "Yes!" back and made his way out of the garage, almost running into Ferb on the way out. "Ferb!" his eyes almost popped out of his head. Ferb smiled and held out their platypus. "Perry!" Phineas grabbed the blue mammal and hugged him, opening his eyes to look at Ferb again. "Does this mean you've changed your mind?" he asked.

Ferb shook his head, "About going? No. But I have changed my mind about how we should say goodbye." And, with that, Ferb took the single stride needed to reach him and enveloped Phineas in a hug. Instantly, Phineas' feelings of betrayal and rejection disappeared to be replaced with love and thankfulness for his brother. Phineas was never mistaken, Ferb really was the best brother he could ever ask for.

A shout from Isabella broke the hug and Phineas took a sad look at Ferb. "Well, I guess this is it. I've got to go…"

Ferb took another stride forward a stopped Phineas where he stood. "Be careful," he told Phineas, looking at him directly. Phineas looked down as Ferb reached for his, Phineas now noticed, bulging pocket and handed him several devices, not the least of which was Ferb's screwdriver. Phineas looked down in bewilderment and gesticulated at his brother. Ferb nodded and pushed him toward the portal which Isabella was standing beside.

Phineas walked up the stairs and held onto Isabella's forearm, never looking away from Ferb. Ferb waved as Perry chattered and Phineas smiled, thinking for a final time, _They really are the best family I could ever ask for,_ before he stepped in sync with Isabella through the portal and disappeared.

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><p><strong>AN – Sorry about the delay in posting this for those of you who are following it. I've been in an uninspired rut for awhile and hadn't decided to finish this chapter off for a long time.**

**Anyhoo, this chapter is really only brotherly fluff – getting Phineas and Ferb to make up. All the action's been postponed till next chapter. For Phinbella fans reading this I apologize for the lack of serious stuff but that's really not until the end of the story. Some interesting Phinbella conversations are due to be in chapter 7 though.**

**Special thanks to WordNerb, who has inspired me with the review they left me and helped me to continue writing. Hope you read this and I encourage you in turn to continue writing, as your stories have been very enjoyable. Therefore, I am dedicating this story to WordNerb. Enjoy!**

**P.S. (WordNerb) It would be a lot easier to contact you through private messaging. Just saying. :)**

**P.S.S If I should feel the need for anymore dedication it will be postponed and given to future stories.**

**Characters: Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh**

**Story: Me!**


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